Amid all the presidential primary excitement on Super Tuesday, it’s easy to forget that the day features some important congressional primary races. Even as those battles unfold, leading Republican thinkers are warning GOP congressional leaders not to forget the importance of retaining the party’s House majority and wresting the Senate majority away from Democrats this year.

In Ohio, arguably Super Tuesday’s most important contest, the newly redrawn ninth congressional district features a primary battle between two congressional Democrats: Toledo’s Marcy Kaptur and Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich. The winner will face, and presumably beat, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, in the general election.

Mr. Wurzelbacher gained fame during the 2008 presidential campaign when he quizzed President Barack Obama on his tax plan, asking whether it would subject small business owners to higher taxes. Mr. Wurzelbacher, a plumbing company employee who isn’t a plumber, never endorsed a candidate. But his televised comments, and repeated references to him during a subsequent debate between Mr. Obama and Republican candidate Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) propelled Mr. Wurzelbacher to stardom as a middle-class Everyman associated with Mr. McCain.

Ohio’s Republican state legislature created the Democratic-leaning 9th in a post-census remap that eliminated two of the state’s 18 congressional seats. The sprawling district extends along Lake Erie from Toledo to Cleveland, and combines Ms. Kaptur and Mr. Kucinich’s districts into one, where they’re in hot contention, with no comprehensive polling to say who’s ahead. Mr. Kucinich has tapped donors in Hollywood, who helped him outraise Ms. Kaptur three-fold, according to Federal Election Commission reports summarized in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Mr. Wurzelbacher failed to file the same fund-raising reports, potentially subjecting him to fines from the FEC, a currently toothless body that rarely collects penalties due.

Dennis Kucinich is taking another swing at the Obama administration’s actions in Libya, just a couple of days after filing a lawsuit accusing the commander-in-chief of violating the 1973 War Powers Act.

Friday, the Ohio Democrat said he’d try to cut off funding for the Libyan conflict by presenting an amendment to an upcoming defense appropriations bill. He seemed to be channeling John Yoo, who dared GOP lawmakers on Friday to attack the administration’s Libya policy not with lawsuits but by cutting funding.

This latest broadside is just part of the wider blowback against the administration’s argument that the Libyan war isn’t really a war. “Sophistry,” here ; “Oh, Please,” here, and a detailed dissection of the administration’s arguments from Harvard’s Jack Goldsmith, here.

“In a direct challenge to Congress, the Administration is continuing the war despite its inability to provide a constitutional or legal justification for bypassing Congress. Congress must use its constitutional authority of the power of the purse to end this war. My amendment will provide the first test whether this Congress will defend its own authority under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution,” said Mr. Kucinich in a press release.

The idea raises some immediate questions: Is the Obama administration even beholden to congressional funding to continue operations in Libya?… Read More »

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a seven-term Democrat from Ohio, is considering a big move – across country to Washington state.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) speaks on April 28, at Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Wash., at a union-sponsored event to remember workers killed on the job in Washington state and call attention to workers assaulted on the job at the hospital. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

The thinking: It gives him a better chance of serving an eighth term. After last year’s census showed population shifts, Ohio is losing two congressional seats while Washington is adding one.

Mr. Kucinich told a Washington state TV station this week that there may be good reason for him to move to the Evergreen State, where he could run for Congress in a newly created congressional district. Mr. Kucinich, an outspoken, antiwar liberal Democrat, will likely be targeted by Ohio Republicans who are redrawing the state’s congressional districts.

“I intend to stay in Congress. My work is here. I just don’t know what district I’ll be running in,” Mr. Kucinich told the station.

“There’s a lot about Washington state that feels like Ohio,” Mr. Kucinich said. But he also said: ““It’s amazing…I love the mountains.”

Mr. Kucinich’s office did not immediately return a request for comment… Read More »

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) filed suit against Restaurants Associates Inc. of New York, its parent company, Compass Group, and two food distributors over a sandwich he bought in April 2008 at a House cafeteria.

Mr. Kucinich suffered “serious and permanent injuries” when he chomped down on one or more unpitted olives, according to a complaint filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. He is seeking compensation of $150,000 (plus interest and costs) for “past and future dental and medical expenses, compensation for pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment and other damages.”

“The sandwich wrap was unwholesome and unfit for human consumption,” the complaint reads.

The congressman’s attorney, Andrew R. Young of the Cleveland firm Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy, declined to comment on the case, telling Washington Wire: “This is a private matter to be tried through the court system, not the public media.”

A representative for Performance Food Group, one of the food distributors named in the suit, said she had heard of the lawsuit but declined to comment. Representatives for FoodBuy LLC, the other distributor, could not be reached. Read More »

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.